Toyota may not be making pure EVs widely available next year as some outlets are reporting, but it will start offering a different kind of plug-in car in 2012. We’ve already heard about Toyota’s experiments with a bi-directional charger that could serve as a backup power source for your home in an emergency, but Toyota is taking the car-as-powerplant theme a bit farther next year, as Automotive News [sub] reports

Next year, Toyota Motor Corp. will start offering AC electric outlets as an option on its popular Prius hybrid so drivers can plug in household appliances — from computers to refrigerators.

The idea was born from watching victims of Japan’s March 11 earthquake using the Toyota Estima hybrid van as a source of emergency electricity when the power was knocked out.

It is the only Toyota model currently offering a standard AC outlet.

But Toyota wants to add them to the Prius next year and eventually across the hybrid lineup. One hitch: It will be offered only in Japan initially. Concerns about different voltages and safety regulations are keeping the technology off export models at least at the start.

Toyota may be only offering the system in Japan at first, but this step offers a fascinating insight: clearly Toyota believes consumers would rather take electricity out of their cars than put it back in. It’s a new interpretation of the plug-in concept and one that, as a blogger who’s always looking for on-the-go laptop power, I can certainly appreciate.

Christian writes:

Hey Sajeev and Steve,

So my girlfriend is in the process of getting a new car. We’re graduating college in May and she was lucky enough to have her Mom offer to buy her a car as a graduation present. Thats pretty much perfect timing because her 1996 Jeep Cherokee Country is on its last legs. She loves her Jeep but it has almost 300,000 miles on it and it hasn’t been the most reliable thing in the world over the past year

Originally, this whole process was supposed to be pretty easy. Her Mom offered to buy her a car worth up to $8000, and loving Jeeps she pretty much had her heart set on a TJ Wrangler, which (correct me if I’m wrong) would probably be pushing her budget.

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UPDATE: Toyota confirms:

Recent reports have incorrectly stated that the 2012 RAV4 EV will only be marketed to fleet and car sharing programs.  We’d like to set the record straight.  The 2012 RAV4 EV will definitely be sold to the general public.  We anticipate robust public interest in the RAV4 EV and are keen to inform consumers that their future vehicle options include a battery electric Toyota.

Toyota is the only manufacturer bringing two battery electric vehicles to the market in 2012 – the RAV4 EV and the Scion iQ EV.  While the RAV4 EV will be available to the public, the Scion iQ EV will be marketed to fleet and car sharing programs only.

A number of major auto outlets got clowned yesterday when a Pike Research blog item seemed to quote Toyota Business Planning Manager of Advanced Vehicle Marketing Geri Yoza as saying the Tesla-developed RAV4 EV would not be sold to private customers, but would distributed to fleets and car sharing services. Not so, it turns out, as Toyota has corrected the Yoza quote by confirming that only the electric version of the iQ city car will definitely not be offered for public sale. But by the time Pike Research got its facts straight, the misinformation had ben regurgitated by the biggest names in car blogging, and had even made its way over to the other side of the Atlantic. The worst part: the real issue brought up in the Pike Research piece was largely lost in the autoblogosphere’s rush to prove Mark Twain’s adage that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” And, as usual, the slow-dressing truth is a lot more interesting than the globe-trotting lie…

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Doesn’t it bug you that you have to shell out loads of money in order to save gas? Here comes a fuel sipper that won’t suck your wallet dry. No fancy electronics, no heavy batteries, and it even so gets 30km per liter of gasoline (according to the JC08 standard,) which translates to a non-EPA, but nonetheless jaw-dropping 70 mpg. According to The Nikkei [sub], Toyota’s Kei car subsidiary Daihatsu “has developed technology that will enable it to offer the only [gasoline powered] car in the world” that gets these numbers without hybrid technology. Read More >

Drivers often get the run around when dealing with the traffic ticket bureaucracy. When fighting city hall, individuals usually have no little hope of prevailing. Motorist Harry A. Church realized that with red light cameras, the system was outsourced from city hall to a company that could be more easily sued. After being double-billed by the Australian red light camera company Redflex Traffic Systems, Church filed a lawsuit that has been taken up by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

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This list, published by the State of California, lists the vehicles which will be eligible for unlimited carpool-lane access from now until January 1, 2015. Sharp-eyed TTAC readers will notice that there is just one readily-available, non-battery-powered, car-form-factor vehicle on the list: the Honda Civic GX.

If you’re interested in cutting your Cali commute time without plugging into a “charging station”, and you like Civics, this is good news. If you’re a Civic GX owner looking to sell, it’s even better news. If you have a new Toyota Prius, this is probably frustrating news.

The rest of us will probably have just one question: What does natural gas have to do with carpooling?

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You may not care very much when U.S. News ranks the $84,060 Nissan GT-R “2 out of 8 Super Luxury Sports Cars.” The thought might cross your mind that with a paltry $84K price, it can hardly qualify as a Super Luxury Sports Car. But you will take note when Top Gear runs the car around its airport-cum-testtrack and … Read More >

Last November, citizens of Garfield Heights, OH, banned the use of red light cameras in the city. The vote was close, 4,827 to throw the cameras out against  4,735 for keeping them. But presidencies were decided on a slimmer margin. The keeps the cams side had powerful support:  A PAC called “Safe Road Ohio” lobbied for the cameras, with the requisite pictures of little children.

According to the Plain Dealer, the primary donor of this PAC is “Redflex Traffic Systems — the company that operates the city’s camera program and pockets $35 from every speeding ticket issued.”  The Garfield Heights Council doesn’t seem to hold democracy in high esteem. Last week, the Council moved to bring the cameras back into the city. Read More >

Remember when we showed you this leaked Alfa Romeo product plan slide, looked straight into your eyes and swore Alfa Rome would be selling a junior supercar and a compact crossover in the US by the 2012 model year? We were lying. Automotive News [sub] let’s us down gently

Chrysler/Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne still says Alfa, which is owned by Fiat, will make its comeback in late 2012 — which had been the plan since April 2010 — but only for a few units of the limited-edition 4C coupe.

A full return now isn’t scheduled to happen before mid-2013, starting with a compact crossover. The mid-sized Giulia sedan could follow by the end of 2013 at the earliest.

What caused the latest delay? Marchionne has rejected the proposed styling for the [Giulia] sedan three times in the past 18 months.

You decide which bit of news is the worst: that Alfa finds itself lost when it tries to design a D-segment car, or that the hot little 4C is going to be a limited edition deal instead of a 15k-25k units per year, semi-affordable ($60k-ish) little mostro. If forced to choose, I’d argue that the prior challenge is the more difficult and necessary, considering that brand’s past struggles selling larger cars… but of course reasonable minds can disagree. Meanwhile, on a more personal level, I find myself continually amazed at how Alfa’s product plans, like its products themselves, are able to completely attract and repel me from moment to moment. Like so many people who identify “emotion” as a core personality trait, Alfa just can’t seem to have a normal relationship with the people who care about it…

Every time Sergio Marchionne makes the headlines, I half expect him to announce that he is not merely a mild-mannered accountant with a fondness for frump, but a mighty superhero, born to rescue failing automakers and the American and Italian ways of life. Having scored a sizable stake a bankruptcy-rinsed Chrysler for no money down, Marchionne has been ruling his Italian and American empires with resolute authority… and 50 direct reports. But Automotive News [sub] isn’t reporting that Marchionne spends his spare time in tights and a cape fighting Russian bandits and Italian labor unions… the word is that Sergio Marchionne is ready to delegate some authority. According to AN’s sources, Marchionne’s plans includes three basic planks:

• Create four regions — Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia-Pacific — each with a regional boss.
• Require brand bosses, who are powerful in the current organization, to work closely with the new regional bosses.
• Establish a new layer of management, tentatively dubbed the steering committee, that would help run Fiat and Chrysler.

But is this new structure really going to end what AN terms “the one-man Sergio show,” a routine of 18-hour days and “catching catnaps on the plane as he flies constantly between Turin and Detroit”? Will it really “help overworked Chrysler executives catch their breath and adopt a saner work rhythm,” as AN puts it? That question remains to be answered…

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It’s been 27 months since I wrote a check for $5,000 to Tesla Motors, my deposit on a Model S sedan. As owner number P717, I’ve gotten some modest bennies to keep me interested till the expected delivery date of mid-2012: a test drive in the Roadster, an invitation to the opening of the New York Tesla store, and some nice promotional swag (T-shirt, coffee mug, and, most recently, a cool little remote-control toy Roadster) .

Last week I was invited to an owners-only preview before a Model S promotional event in Greenwich, Ct. Set in the posh clothing store Richards, just across the street from an Apple store, the event featured a sinuous dark red early proof-of-concept prototype of the Model S. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to drive, sit in, or even touch the car (“It cost more than $2 million to build,” we were told). But the black-clad Tesla reps on hand offered some intriguing technical info about the car that, to my knowledge, had not been previously revealed. Among the more interesting tidbits:

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Another weekend has yielded yet another review of the new Ford Focus [this one from the NYT] that’s generally impressed with car but gives it huge negatives for its unruly, efficiency-tuned PowerShift dual-clutch transmission. TTAC’s been tracking PowerShift discontent since the transmission debuted in Europe three years ago, but America’s smoldering dislike of the dual-clutcher has only erupted into flames in recent months, when Consumer Reports, TrueDelta and JD Power all dinged Ford for PowerShift issues as well as MyFordTouch teething woes. And, in the teeth of mounting criticism of its dual-clutch transmission, WardsAuto reports that Ford has

sent dealers a memo with instructions to help sales and service personnel enlighten consumers about the behavioral nuances of the fuel-saving 6-speed automatic gearbox…

Although the Ford gearboxes perform as intended, customers relate the frequency and abruptness of gearshifts to their experiences with conventional automatic transmissions. Hence, a perceived problem, the auto maker says.

“What we really want to convey is their experience is something different,” [Fiesta brand manager Sherryl] Brightwell tells Ward’s, claiming there is nothing “wrong” with the car.

Because it’s not a transmission problem, it’s an enlightenment problem! Nothing to worry about Ma’am, it’s just a little bit grabby between the second and third chakras. Seriously though, TTAC wants to know what Ford thinks consumers need to know before they reach the seventh level of divine PowerShift acceptance. So don’t spin your Dharmic wheels, TTAC-reading Ford dealers… shoot us a copy [contact form here, anonymity guaranteed] and we’ll let TTAC’s Best and Brightest meditate on the problem as well as its proposed solution.

„But if it’s attention you are after, no conversion beats Hello Kitty,“ says the announcer. And after a long pause: “ … even in Kyoto.”

No kitting.

DesignworksUSA is a design consultancy and subsidiary of  the BMW Group. Together with Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Designworks will create “a new generation of train cars that will enter service by 2017 and deliver a premium ridership experience for its passengers,” says BMW in an emailed statement, and adds that BART “presently operates the oldest fleet of train cars in the USA.” Read More >

Having penned my own paean to the late, not-so-widely-lamented Renault Vel Satis after seeing its anodyne Korean replacement, I was somewhat heartened to find that I’m not the only auto writer with something of a weird crush on the strangest luxury car of our day. In the August issue of Evo Magazine, Richard Porter of Sniff Petrol dedicated an entire column [excerpted at vel-satis.org] to his inexplicable love for a car that he admits was

a hopeless old crock [from a time] when Renault’s quality control department couldn’t organise a tasting in a winery.

But, argues Porter, the Vel Satis has a unique appeal in the sense that it was

so self-consciously distanced from its dour German rivals that it was practically falling into La Rochelle Harbour

Whether Porter is genuine in is love for the Vel Satis or simply trolling famously elitist, performance-oriented readership is a question I’ll leave to the Best and Brightest. What is clear is that Porter’s weird love will not be recreated, as Auto Motor und Sport reports that Renault has learned its lesson and will be making “conservative” luxury cars in the future.

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